LAHORE, May 31: Thousands of lawyers, rights and political workers on Thursday rallied on The Mall as part of the ongoing campaign against the suspension of the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

A large number of people from organisations of doctors, teachers, students, labourers and minorities also participated in the rally besides dozens of passers-by, who showered rose petals on the protesters.

It was the third rally as part of an announcement made by the Lahore High Court Bar Association, which had said that the lawyers would protest every Thursday to press their demand of reinstating the chief justice of Pakistan to his office. “We will continue our protest till the judiciary is made independent and democracy restored,” said bar secretary Sarfraz Cheema.

The lawyers in the city and elsewhere in Punjab also boycotted court proceedings and attended hunger strike camps.

The Pakistan Medical Association, the Punjab Professors and Lectures Associations, the Punjab Teachers Associations and the Punjab University Academic Staff besides activists of the PPP, the PML-N, the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf, the MMA, the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl), the Istiqlal Party, the Tehrik-i-Istiqlal, the Pakistan Qaumi Party, the Labour Party, the Khaksar Tehrik and the Jamiat Tulaba Islam took part in the rally. Punjab PPP president Shah Mahmood Qureshi and PML-N leader Khwaja Saad Rafiq led their workers.

Chanting slogans, including “Go Musharraf go!” and “Down with Musharraf,” the protesters demanded that the president should step down and hold fair and free elections. They also demanded a complete ban on the activities of MQM in Karachi and elsewhere in Pakistan. Some political workers also raised slogans opposing any deal of their parties with President Gen Musharraf.

Thousands of lawyers took out a rally from Aiwan-i-Adl, which was joined by another batch of more or less as many members of their fraternity at the GPO Chowk, and on their tail remained the political workers with hundreds of their party flags. The political workers also burned an effigy of the president.

The protesters held a sit-in at the Faisal Chowk in front of the Punjab Assembly and returned peacefully to the LHC. The LHCBA president asked the protesters to keep up the ongoing struggle for the return of democracy in the country.

PALEJO: Awami Tehrik Pakistan chairman Rasul Bukhsh Palejo, while addressing the Lahore High Court Bar before the rally, said the military rule was like a disease which Pakistan had been suffering from since long.